Limitless Evolution As a Snake

Lyra’s collections are ruthless but tidy, every debt tracked, every payment plan enforced with a smile that never quite reaches her eyes.

Cherry’s floor runs like a well-oiled, horrifyingly effective machine of eye contact and bad decisions, and underneath all of it, quiet, unspoken, sits the reason nobody skips out on a tab twice.

I know what happens if someone crosses them. Lyra doesn’t even raise her voice, just gets that unhurried stillness in her shoulders, and whoever thought they could stiff the house ends up smiling too wide, moving too fast, calling her things like ”boss” and ”mistress” for exactly five minutes before their brain cooks itself and they start eating their own fingers.

Cherry’s worse in the quiet way, the way she disappears into the back room with someone who ”asked too many questions” and comes out humming, coat a little heavier, a fresh skin sack tucked away for whichever skinwalker client requested a custom order this week.

A tremor runs through my scales every time I think about it, which is often, because it’s hard not to think about it when the whole casino runs smooth as silk, specifically because everyone’s too scared to find out what happens when it doesn’t, and it’s even worse because those are my skills.

[System: Yeah, mate, gonna be honest with you. That’s messed up. That’s messed up even for me, and I’ve been watching you this whole time.]

Thanks, I hate that.

[System: Ten out of ten profit margins though. Absolute banger of a business model. Just, y’know. Ethically horrifying.]

I know, I tell him again, coiling a little tighter around myself on the velvet cushion Lyra insisted I needed for ”morale,” watching the casino floor glitter below like some neon fever dream I apparently own now.

I don’t know if I’m supposed to be scared of what my girls have become or proud of what they’ve built. Turns out I don’t actually have to pick, because both feelings just sit there, a warm, ugly knot deep in my coils, and somewhere inside I think I like it a little too much.

Home sweet home smells like microwave noodles and impending relationship talk, which is somehow the scarier of the two.

Lyra’s already on the couch when I slither in, patrol jacket tossed over the armrest, hair still damp from a shower.

Cherry’s perched on the opposite end, coat wrapped tight around herself even though she’s inside now, no rain to hide from. Both of them look at me the second I come through the door like they’ve been waiting.

Great. A meeting. My favourite. What did I do?

I coil up on the little rug I’ve claimed as my spot, rear up enough to look at both of them at eye level, and try to look casual about it.

Like I don’t already know where this is going.

”So,” I say. ”Is this a thing now? Both of you just sitting there staring at me like I fucked something up, but I’m meant to know what I did wrong.”

Lyra laughs.

Okay, I’m going to die.

”That’s not what this is about, and you know it.” Lyra laughs a bit more.

Cherry’s horn stumps twitch. She’s not saying anything yet, just watching me with those colour-shifting eyes, waiting to see how this goes before she commits to a reaction.

I take a breath, or whatever the snake equivalent is. Flare my hood a little, more habit than threat display at this point.

”Look,” I sigh. ”I know I’ve been in and out. Disappearing at weird hours, coming back smelling like sewer water and worse. I can’t really explain half of it. Some of it’s casino business, some of it’s stuff I genuinely cannot talk about, and I need you to trust me on that.”

Lyra tilts her head, that thing she does when she’s actually listening instead of just waiting for her turn to talk. ”Okay.”

”Okay? Just like that?”

”You’ve never given me a reason not to,” she says. ”Give me a reason and we’ll have a different conversation. Until then, I trust you.”

Cherry nods so fast her horns nearly clack against the wall.

”One hundred per cent trust, absolute total.”

”You don’t even know what I’m about to ask you to do,” I say.

”Doesn’t matter,” Cherry says. ”If it’s for you, it’s automatically good.”

That’s concerning on about four different levels, but I file it away for later, because right now I’ve got a bigger point to make.

”Here’s the thing,” I say. ”I don’t want either of you thinking I’m choosing one over the other, or that this is some competition. So I want us to work out a schedule. Something that makes sense. Someone’s at the casino working the floor, handling the debt situation, keeping horse girl race’s people happy enough that they don’t come knocking. Someone’s with me at night, whatever that night looks like. And we rotate. Nobody gets stuck doing the boring job forever; nobody feels like they’re getting less of me than the other.”

Lyra leans forward, elbows on her knees. ”That’s actually thought out; didn’t expect that from you.”

”I have moments.”

”Rare ones,” Cherry mutters, then flushes when I look at her. ”Sorry. Sorry, that was rude, I didn’t mean-”

”It’s fine,” I say. ”She’s right anyway, and your snarkiness is another reason I love you.”

We hash it out over the next twenty minutes. Lyra takes casino nights when she’s not on patrol, since she’s got the head for numbers and the patience for dealing with drunk surface tourists.

Cherry takes the nights I’m out doing whatever I can’t talk about, because apparently she’s decided that means ”guard the home nest” duty, and nothing I say talks her out of that framing. And whoever’s not working gets me, simple as that. Rotating, fair, nobody left out in the cold.

But who gets me tonight is the real question, and I’m worried these two are either about to fight for it or will be doing some cooked version of scissors, paper, rock.